Example Of World War II Essay

Second World War started 21 years after the First World War. After the First World War, the winners have established the League of Nations as a collective security mechanism to safeguard peace and contain aggressor-countries. However, the mechanism did not work. Many small military conflicts took place without any action from the new body. Finally, in 1939, when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, it simply terminated its membership in the organization and thus broke free from any obligations. The problem with collective security system of the period between the two wars was that it did not have any power to enforce its rules on aggressors.
Germany has been preparing for war ever since Hitler came to power in 1933. He has started an extensive rearmament program in total violation of the Treaty of Versailles. By 1939, it was the strongest military power in Europe. Neither England nor France could stop German aggression in Europe because both these countries have failed to keep up with the armament race with Germany. However, when the United States and Soviet Union got involved in the war with Germany and other Axis Powers, it became apparent that the economic potential of the Allied Powers was much greater than that of the Axis. Hitler’s goal to extend the “Lebenstraum” or living space for Germans led to capture of the vast territories that were impossible to defend in military terms. Holocaust, Nazi obsession with Jewish population extinction, have led to the total alienation of Germany and made peaceful negotiations with the western powers in the final stages of war, after the battle of Kursk and German retreat, impossible. Despite the fact, that Western democracies treated the Soviet Union with reservations and regarded it as a threat to Europe, German aggression has led to massive economic support to the Russians from U.S. through a Lend-Lease Agreement. These factors have sealed the fate of Germany, made its military defeat inevitable and led to Nuremberg Trials.